G.R. No. L-15092

Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

EN BANC

G.R. No. L-15092 May 18, 1962

ALFREDO MONTELIBANO, ET AL., plaintiffs-appellants,
vs.
BACOLOD-MURCIA MILLING CO., INC., defendant-appellee.

Tañada, Teehankee and Carreon for plaintiffs-appellants.
Hilado and Hilado for defendant-appellee.

REYES, J.B.L., J.:

Appeal on points of law from a judgment of the Court of First Instance of Occidental Negros, in its Civil Case No. 2603, dismissing plaintiff's complaint that sought to compel the defendant Milling Company to increase plaintiff's share in the sugar produced from their cane, from 60% to 62.33%, starting from the 1951-1952 crop year.1äwphï1.ñët

It is undisputed that plaintiffs-appellants, Alfredo Montelibano, Alejandro Montelibano, and the Limited co-partnership Gonzaga and Company, had been and are sugar planters adhered to the defendant-appellee's sugar central mill under identical milling contracts. Originally executed in 1919, said contracts were stipulated to be in force for 30 years starting with the 1920-21 crop, and provided that the resulting product should be divided in the ratio of 45% for the mill and 55% for the planters. Sometime in 1936, it was proposed to execute amended milling contracts, increasing the planters' share to 60% of the manufactured sugar and resulting molasses, besides other concessions, but extending the operation of the milling contract from the original 30 years to 45 years. To this effect, a printed Amended Milling Contract form was drawn up. On August 20, 1936, the Board of Directors of the appellee Bacolod-Murcia Milling Co., Inc., adopted a resolution (Acts No. 11, Acuerdo No. 1) granting further concessions to the planters over and above those contained in the printed Amended Milling Contract. The bone of contention is paragraph 9 of this resolution, that reads as follows:

ACTA No. 11
SESSION DE LA JUNTA DIRECTIVA
AGOSTO 20, 1936

x x x x x x x x x

Acuerdo No. 1. — Previa mocion debidamente secundada, la Junta en consideracion a una peticion de los plantadores hecha por un comite nombrado por los mismos, acuerda enmendar el contrato de molienda enmendado medientelas siguentes:

x x x x x x x x x

9.a Que si durante la vigencia de este contrato de Molienda Enmendado, lascentrales azucareras, de Negros Occidental, cuya produccion anual de azucar centrifugado sea mas de una tercera parte de la produccion total de todas lascentrales azucareras de Negros Occidental, concedieren a sus plantadores mejores condiciones que la estipuladas en el presente contrato, entonces esas mejores condiciones se concederan y por el presente se entenderan concedidas a los platadores que hayan otorgado este Contrato de Molienda Enmendado.

Appellants signed and executed the printed Amended Milling Contract on September 10, 1936, but a copy of the resolution of August 10, 1936, signed by the Central's General Manager, was not attached to the printed contract until April 17, 1937; with the notation —

Las enmiendas arriba transcritas forman parte del contrato de molienda enmendado, otorgado por — y la Bacolod-Murcia Milling Co., Inc.

In 1953, the appellants initiated the present action, contending that three Negros sugar centrals (La Carlota, Binalbagan-Isabela and San Carlos), with a total annual production exceeding one-third of the production of all the sugar central mills in the province, had already granted increased participation (of 62.5%) to their planters, and that under paragraph 9 of the resolution of August 20, 1936, heretofore quoted, the appellee had become obligated to grant similar concessions to the plaintiffs (appellants herein). The appellee Bacolod-Murcia Milling Co., inc., resisted the claim, and defended by urging that the stipulations contained in the resolution were made without consideration; that the resolution in question was, therefore, null and void ab initio, being in effect a donation that was ultra vires and beyond the powers of the corporate directors to adopt.

After trial, the court below rendered judgment upholding the stand of the defendant Milling company, and dismissed the complaint. Thereupon, plaintiffs duly appealed to this Court.

We agree with appellants that the appealed decisions can not stand. It must be remembered that the controverted resolution was adopted by appellee corporation as a supplement to, or further amendment of, the proposed milling contract, and that it was approved on August 20, 1936, twenty-one days prior to the signing by appellants on September 10, of the Amended Milling Contract itself; so that when the Milling Contract was executed, the concessions granted by the disputed resolution had been already incorporated into its terms. No reason appears of record why, in the face of such concessions, the appellants should reject them or consider them as separate and apart from the main amended milling contract, specially taking into account that appellant Alfredo Montelibano was, at the time, the President of the Planters Association (Exhibit 4, p. 11) that had agitated for the concessions embodied in the resolution of August 20, 1936. That the resolution formed an integral part of the amended milling contract, signed on September 10, and not a separate bargain, is further shown by the fact that a copy of the resolution was simply attached to the printed contract without special negotiations or agreement between the parties.

It follows from the foregoing that the terms embodied in the resolution of August 20, 1936 were supported by the same causa or consideration underlying the main amended milling contract; i.e., the promises and obligations undertaken thereunder by the planters, and, particularly, the extension of its operative period for an additional 15 years over and beyond the 30 years stipulated in the original contract. Hence, the conclusion of the court below that the resolution constituted gratuitous concessions not supported by any consideration is legally untenable.

All disquisition concerning donations and the lack of power of the directors of the respondent sugar milling company to make a gift to the planters would be relevant if the resolution in question had embodied a separate agreement after the appellants had already bound themselves to the terms of the printed milling contract. But this was not the case. When the resolution was adopted and the additional concessions were made by the company, the appellants were not yet obligated by the terms of the printed contract, since they admittedly did not sign it until twenty-one days later, on September 10, 1936. Before that date, the printed form was no more than a proposal that either party could modify at its pleasure, and the appellee actually modified it by adopting the resolution in question. So that by September 10, 1936 defendant corporation already understood that the printed terms were not controlling, save as modified by its resolution of August 20, 1936; and we are satisfied that such was also the understanding of appellants herein, and that the minds of the parties met upon that basis. Otherwise there would have been no consent or "meeting of the minds", and no binding contract at all. But the conduct of the parties indicates that they assumed, and they do not now deny, that the signing of the contract on September 10, 1936, did give rise to a binding agreement. That agreement had to exist on the basis of the printed terms as modified by the resolution of August 20, 1936, or not at all. Since there is no rational explanation for the company's assenting to the further concessions asked by the planters before the contracts were signed, except as further inducement for the planters to agree to the extension of the contract period, to allow the company now to retract such concessions would be to sanction a fraud upon the planters who relied on such additional stipulations.

The same considerations apply to the "void innovation" theory of appellees. There can be no novation unless two distinct and successive binding contracts take place, with the later designed to replace the preceding convention. Modifications introduced before a bargain becomes obligatory can in no sense constitute novation in law.

Stress is placed on the fact that the text of the Resolution of August 20, 1936 was not attached to the printed contract until April 17, 1937. But, except in the case of statutory forms or solemn agreements (and it is not claimed that this is one), it is the assent and concurrence (the "meeting of the minds") of the parties, and not the setting down of its terms, that constitutes a binding contract. And the fact that the addendum is only signed by the General Manager of the milling company emphasizes that the addition was made solely in order that the memorial of the terms of the agreement should be full and complete.

Much is made of the circumstance that the report submitted by the Board of Directors of the appellee company in November 19, 1936 (Exhibit 4) only made mention of 90%, the planters having agreed to the 60-40 sharing of the sugar set forth in the printed "amended milling contracts", and did not make any reference at all to the terms of the resolution of August 20, 1936. But a reading of this report shows that it was not intended to inventory all the details of the amended contract; numerous provisions of the printed terms are alao glossed over. The Directors of the appellee Milling Company had no reason at the time to call attention to the provisions of the resolution in question, since it contained mostly modifications in detail of the printed terms, and the only major change was paragraph 9 heretofore quoted; but when the report was made, that paragraph was not yet in effect, since it was conditioned on other centrals granting better concessions to their planters, and that did not happen until after 1950. There was no reason in 1936 to emphasize a concession that was not yet, and might never be, in effective operation.

There can be no doubt that the directors of the appellee company had authority to modify the proposed terms of the Amended Milling Contract for the purpose of making its terms more acceptable to the other contracting parties. The rule is that —

It is a question, therefore, in each case of the logical relation of the act to the corporate purpose expressed in the charter. If that act is one which is lawful in itself, and not otherwise prohibited, is done for the purpose of serving corporate ends, and is reasonably tributary to the promotion of those ends, in a substantial, and not in a remote and fanciful sense, it may fairly be considered within charter powers. The test to be applied is whether the act in question is in direct and immediate furtherance of the corporation's business, fairly incident to the express powers and reasonably necessary to their exercise. If so, the corporation has the power to do it; otherwise, not. (Fletcher Cyc. Corp., Vol. 6, Rev. Ed. 1950, pp. 266-268)

As the resolution in question was passed in good faith by the board of directors, it is valid and binding, and whether or not it will cause losses or decrease the profits of the central, the court has no authority to review them.

They hold such office charged with the duty to act for the corporation according to their best judgment, and in so doing they cannot be controlled in the reasonable exercise and performance of such duty. Whether the business of a corporation should be operated at a loss during depression, or close down at a smaller loss, is a purely business and economic problem to be determined by the directors of the corporation and not by the court. It is a well-known rule of law that questions of policy or of management are left solely to the honest decision of officers and directors of a corporation, and the court is without authority to substitute its judgment of the board of directors; the board is the business manager of the corporation, and so long as it acts in good faith its orders are not reviewable by the courts. (Fletcher on Corporations, Vol. 2, p. 390).

And it appearing undisputed in this appeal that sugar centrals of La Carlota, Hawaiian Philippines, San Carlos and Binalbagan (which produce over one-third of the entire annual sugar production in Occidental Negros) have granted progressively increasing participations to their adhered planter at an average rate of

62.333% for the 1951-52 crop year;

64.2% for 1952-53;

64.3% for 1953-54;

64.5% for 1954-55; and

63.5% for 1955-56,

the appellee Bacolod-Murcia Milling Company is, under the terms of its Resolution of August 20, 1936, duty bound to grant similar increases to plaintiffs-appellants herein.

WHEREFORE, the decision under appeal is reversed and set aside; and judgment is decreed sentencing the defendant-appellee to pay plaintiffs-appellants the differential or increase of participation in the milled sugar in accordance with paragraph 9 of the appellee Resolution of August 20, 1936, over and in addition to the 60% expressed in the printed Amended Milling Contract, or the value thereof when due, as follows:

0,333% to appellants Montelibano for the 1951-1952 crop year, said appellants having received an additional 2% corresponding to said year in October, 1953;

2.333% to appellant Gonzaga & Co., for the 1951-1952 crop year; and to all appellants thereafter —
4.2% for the 1952-1953 crop year;
4.3% for the 1953-1954 crop year;
4.5% for the 1954-1955 crop year;
3.5% for the 1955-1956 crop year;

with interest at the legal rate on the value of such differential during the time they were withheld; and the right is reserved to plaintiffs-appellants to sue for such additional increases as they may be entitled to for the crop years subsequent to those herein adjudged.

Costs against appellee, Bacolod-Murcia Milling Co.

Padilla, Bautista Angelo, Labrador, Concepcion, Barrera, Paredes and Dizon, JJ., concur.

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